Dieter Kosslick may be out of the Berlinale limelight, but he continues to champion two things that remain dear to his heart, film and the environment, and as the director of a new festival, he is combining the two in the hope of tackling the climate crisis and encouraging greater sustainability for the sake of a better world.
Kosslick was appointed by the city of Potsdam to head the new Green Visions Potsdam fest, which launched last year and will see its second edition take place May 22-25.
After stepping down as Berlinale director, Kosslick eased into his new life with a personal endeavor, writing a memoir.
“The transition was very simple because I had this project to write this autobiography,” Kosslick tells Variety. “And it took me one year to write this and it was a kind of fun and also it was a kind of a psychoanalytic meeting by myself. I was the therapist and also the object.
“The difference between Freud and my therapy was I was sitting at a chair typing and with Freud, you have to lie down on the sofa.”
The title of his memoir, “Immer auf dem Teppich bleiben,” which translates as “Always Keep Your Feet on the Ground,” is about remaining humble, “as humble as you can be — after 19 years as a film festival director you have to pay attention because you forget completely what humility is.”
While he was happy to finish his book, which he describes as part autobiography, part Berlinale memoir and part deliberation on the future of green cinema, the pandemic dashed plans for a bookstore tour in 2021.
Fortunately, Kosslick found an appropriate alternative: “We decided to do a kino tour! We started a tour through Germany to 50 cinemas. So I was reading in cinemas instead of the bookstores.”
When the city of Potsdam decided to organize a film festival focusing on climate change, they approached Kosslick to head it.
“Potsdam is not only a film city, it’s also a main center of climate research,” Kosslick notes. The city is home to the world-famous Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Kosslick worked with public relations specialist Nikola Mirza on the concept for the festival, which became Green Visions Potsdam.
With curator Karen Arikian on board, the festival opened last year with the German premieres of Mahalia Belo’s survival thriller “The End We Start From,” starring Jodie Comer, Jean-Albert Lièvre’s documentary “Whale Nation” and Robert Kenner and Melissa Robledo’s documentary “Food, Inc. 2.”
Green Visions is set to unveil this year’s lineup in March.
Peter Himsel
Like the Berlinale, Green Visions also has its own market, albeit a farmers’ market rather than a film mart. Located outside the Potsdam Film Museum, it offers green products from regional providers, serves as the festival meeting place and offers informational events on sustainable living. (Germany’s oldest film museum is itself located in Potsdam’s oldest building, the Baroque-syle former royal stable of the City Palace, built in 1685.)
Peter Himsel
For Kosslick, the focus on climate and environment protection is nothing new. Under his leadership, the Berlinale became the world’s first festival to use 100% green energy, after eco-energy provider Entega became an official sponsor in 2011. Germany’s Institute for Applied Ecology began calculating the Berlinale’s CO2 footprint in 2010 — an initial step that led to the adoption of many further measures.
During the Berlinale that year, festival organizers and Entega set up an art installation in Berlin’s Tiergarten park to promote forest protection and address climate change. Modelled after the Hollywood sign, it read “Holywood.” Not understanding the message, concerned officials at the nearby U.S. Embassy called Kosslick to inform that “Hollywood” had been misspelled.
“It was very complicated when we started,” Kosslick says, “because festivals were doing everything wrong — traveling like mad, flying around the world, wasting food, mostly eating meat, cheap meat. Then you need light and electricity on the red carpet and everywhere you need cars, and so much paper. But 10 years later, the whole movement really started. When I left the Berlinale, it was already very far ahead in all this. We changed the electricity, no nuclear power anymore, we had no meat — everybody was criticizing me like mad, but in the meantime everybody is vegan; Berlin is the main city for vegetarian and vegan food. It wasn’t just me, it was my colleagues, the whole team at the Berlinale, we were ahead of our time in this.”
